Some literature is knowledge, some is just data. But if I can get a "happy" ending - which is when for the characters I'm writing about, something happens that they move from wherever they are in the beginning to knowledge or wisdom, they know something they never would have acknowledged or realized if it hadn't been for my book - that for me is what literature does.
I wrote six nonfiction books before getting into narrative fiction with 'Robopocalypse,' including 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising.' My goal all along was to start writing fiction, and I guess one day I'd just had enough.
Having reached the halfway mark in the alphabet, my prime focus is on writing each new book as well as I can.
I've been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don't need to write a book for adults.
I just try to write entertaining books that are easily identifiable.
I don't sit down to write a funny story. Every single thing I sit down to write is meant to be sad.
I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one... In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money... the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it.
When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.
I really strive to bring something new to each book. I don't want to write the same book over and over again.
I write science fiction for people who don't read a great deal of science fiction.
I would describe myself as a writer that hopes to take you into my world and help you feel a little safer.
As a writer, my goal, (which I'm never going to achieve, and I know that, and no writer can achieve that,) but my goal is to make you almost live the books. I want you to fall through that page and feel as if these things are happening to you.
My number one goal as a thriller writer is to entertain you. But I've got a chance to not only entertain people, but have them close my book and be smarter having read it.
In my books I try to tell a good story, not give messages.
I'm just going to write the best books I can.
I never wrote my books especially for children.
The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting. To be interesting; not to change the world.
I try to write in a way where you care deeply what the next paragraph will be. I hear the rhythm of prose and that, to me, distinguishes great writing from ordinary writing. By the way, I don't even claim that I'm good. I claim that I value it.
Some people connect with a story and may find between the lines something that might be useful to him or her, but that's not the intention of the author, I think. At least not mine.
I don't like to write boring books.
When I write a book, I'm making it the best book I can.
I thought to myself, 'why not write a bestseller?' In the first place, more people buy them and more people read them. You make more money and it doesn’t take any more time to write a bestseller than it does to write a book nobody buys.
I feel as long as people enjoy what they read and learn something more, I have done my job as a writer.
Readers are paramount. I live to write books for them.
I think every writer lives for the thought that there will be a moment when somebody reads something on the page and says, "Yes!"
